Bannon: Trump Will Run for Reelection in 2024 if He Loses in November

Steve Bannon, former White House chief strategist to President Donald Trump, speaks at a debate with Lanny Davis, former special counsel to Bill Clinton, at Zofin Palacein Prague, Czech Republic, on May 22, 2018. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Former White House adviser and Trump 2016 campaign manager Steve Bannon said President Donald Trump will run for reelection in 2024 if he loses the presidential race to Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

If he fails to defeat Biden next month, “You’re not going to see the end of Donald Trump,” he told The Australian newspaper.

But he said the Nov. 3 election is “closer than being reported” and predicted that “Trump will win on Election Day.”

“I’ll make this prediction right now: If for any reason the election is stolen from or in some sort of way Joe Biden is declared the winner, Trump will announce he’s going to run for reelection in 2024,” he said.

Trump’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, Bannon, who was arrested and charged in August for alleged fraud in a border wall crowdfunding plan, told a forum that Trump might claim victory on election night.

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at the Ocala International Airport in Ocala, Fla., on Oct. 16, 2020. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

“At 10 o‘clock or 11 o’clock ... on November 3, Donald J. Trump is going to walk into the Oval Office, and he may hit a tweet before he goes in there ... and he’s going to sit there, having won Ohio, and being up in Pennsylvania and Florida, and he’s going to say, ‘Hey, game’s over,’” Bannon said at an Oct. 10 forum hosted by the Young Republican Federation of Virginia.

“The elites are traumatized. They do not want to go stand in line and vote. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a game-changer,” Bannon said. “It [the decisive factor] is what electorate shows up to vote on a vote that can be certified. That’s a vote that counts. And right now, what they [Trump critics] don’t want to talk about, is Donald J. Trump leads on people who are actually going to show up and vote on November 3, by 21 percent.”

Over the weekend, Trump again joked that he might leave the United States if he’s defeated by Biden.

Trump said in Georgia last week: “I shouldn’t joke because you know what? Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me. Could you imagine if I lose? My whole life, what am I going to do? I’m going to say ‘I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics.’ I’m not going to feel so good.”

He then quipped that “maybe I’ll have to leave the country? I don’t know.”

Last month, during a rally in North Carolina, the president said that, if he lost, “I don’t know what I’m going to do–I will never speak to you again.”